Sunterra Points HELP

[trashguy94]

I own club sunterra and there always trying to sell me the trust plan. My mother owns the trust. We both are thinking of buying more points but not from sunterra. Can anyone help us out should I buy not in the trust or should she buy being in the trust. And does anyone know what if any the fees would be. Any info would help.

 

[Bill4728]

OK, I'll try to explain as best I can.

First there are owners of Sunterra managed resorts and there are "Club Sunterra" members. Not all owners are club members.
Second there are three kinds of Sunterra owners:
1. Owners of in the Sunterra Trust (some in Club Sunterra and some not)
2. Owners of deeded property managed by Sunterra who are also members in Club Sunterra.
3. Owners of deeded property managed by Sunterra who are not in Club Sunterra.

All owners in the trust of ~19 Sunterra properties can use their points at any of the 19 resorts and if a club member can use the other Sunterra resorts. When they sell they can only sell the ownership in the trust not in Club Sunterra.

Owners at all other Sunterra resorts can use their home resort and if a club member can use the other Sunterra resorts. When they sell, they can only sell the ownership in the single deeded property not in Club Sunterra.

So, if you (as a current Club member) want to buy a unit at a sunterra property, you can:
1. Buy from sunterra at a huge cost and get both the deeded property and the points added to your Club membership. Or
2. Buy just the deeded property (resale from a current owner) at a huge savings BUT you will not be able to add the points from that property to your Club Sunterra membership. OR
3. Buy from a trust owner (resale of course) and get use of any of the 19 trust resorts BUT you will not be able to add the points from that trust purchase to your Club Sunterra membership.OR

4. Buy resale from a deeded owner or a trust owner, then buy a very small sunterra unit directly from Sunterra and Sunterra will allow the resale properties to be added into your Club membership too.

(Spence & Others) I think I have this right but PLEASE correct me if I have some of this wrong.

 

[AwayWeGo]

Don't Listen To Me...

I own club sunterra and there always trying to sell me the trust plan. My mother owns the trust. We both are thinking of buying more points but not from sunterra. Can anyone help us out should I buy not in the trust or should she buy being in the trust. And does anyone know what if any the fees would be. Any info would help.

...because all I know (or think I know) about SunTerra I heard at various SunTerra timeshare sales presentations. (That's because I bought resale at 2 SunTerra timeshares & have attended "owner updates" there that actually were stealth SunTerra timeshare sales pitches -- some "updates" those turned out to be.)

However that may be, the way I understand it SunTerra points can only be purchased at full freight from the SunTerra Co., although under some circumstances SunTerra Co. might allow owners of resale SunTerra timeshares to "convert" those to SunTerra points by paying more money to the SunTerra Co. for membership in Club SunTerra. Not only that, to get into the current (i.e., "trust") version of Club SunTerra, owners turn their timeshare deeds (plus a bunch more money) over to SunTerra in exchange for shares in the "trust." That is to say, joining the "trust" version of Club SunTerra means no longer having deeded timeshare ownership any more.

For all those reasons & more, I have never felt much affinity for SunTerra Co. or Club SunTerra, even though they did such a nice job in designing & building 2 of my favorite Orlando FL timeshares that I bought there -- resale, naturally. Maybe I should try being more open-mineded about SunTerra, I don't know.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[Spence]

OK, I'll try to explain as best I can.

Sounds close enough to me.

Don't Listen To Me... because all I know (or think I know) ]

Sunterra has no capital T in the middle, I'd take that into account before I decided anything based on this info. Any "owner update" with any developer is just a sales opportunity. There's nothing wrong with a business model that tries to encourage developer sales and discourage resale, do I like it, no.

 

[fnewman]

I agree - in addition, I don't think any of us knows what will happen to the policies as a result of the recent acquisition. That's what I would like to hear about !!

 

[momeason]

Sounds close enough to me.
Sunterra has no capital T in the middle, I'd take that into account before I decided anything based on this info. Any "owner update" with any developer is just a sales opportunity. There's nothing wrong with a business model that tries to encourage developer sales and discourage resale, do I like it, no.

My sister in law owns at Poipu Point in Kuaui, Formerly Embassy. We attended an update with her in Feb and purchased points with her and her husband. Sunterra was going to convert her fixed week to points also. They showed us brochures of all the 108 Sunterra properties and the II book., telling us we could trade with Marriott resorts.

I came home and researched Sunterra. They have not submitted financial statements yet for the year ended Sept 30,2006. They keep getting extensions. They have also admitted their are significant financial discrepanciies in several prior years statements, not corrected yet. European properties were on the market in a distress sale.
We rescinded as fast as we could.

The resort at Poipu Point is very nice, but there are only 4 premium resorts in the system and their finances made me very nervous. I would wait and see before I bought anything with Sunterra.

We bought Fairfield points on resale instead. Much lower investment. We still got into II since we bought an II/FF property. don't expect to be able to trade with Marriott though.

 

[Spence]

Sunterra's financials are nothing new from global expansion to Chap7 in 2002, they've had problems. You might want to do more research before you so broadly comment, their Europe operation is not on the block anymore and they have are being taken private.

This has all had little to do with Club Sunterra and your individual ownerships. Sunterra is also easily bought on the secondary market for as little as 4cents on the dollar, that's the last price I paid.

My sister in law owns at Poipu Point in Kuaui, Formerly Embassy. We attended an update with her in Feb and purchased points with her and her husband. Sunterra was going to convert her fixed week to points also. They showed us brochures of all the 108 Sunterra properties and the II book., telling us we could trade with Marriott resorts.

I came home and researched Sunterra. They have not submitted financial statements yet for the year ended Sept 30,2006. They keep getting extensions. They have also admitted their are significant financial discrepanciies in several prior years statements, not corrected yet. European properties were on the market in a distress sale.
We rescinded as fast as we could.

The resort at Poipu Point is very nice, but there are only 4 premium resorts in the system and their finances made me very nervous. I would wait and see before I bought anything with Sunterra.

We bought Fairfield points on resale instead. Much lower investment. We still got into II since we bought an II/FF property. don't expect to be able to trade with Marriott though.